Morning Rundown: Reds Are Hot, Indians Pitching Not in Sweep

You win some you lose some, that's the motto. You just don't want to lose all of them if you can help it. It would have been nice to take one, but I think ultimately you accept the fact that the Reds just found their groove and move on. You can't let the second place (say whaaaat) Pirates come into Cleveland now and do the same thing.

 

Look no further in submitting to what the Reds did as finding their groove than what Josh Tomlin had to say about his outing. 

Exhibit A? The center field shot that Joey Votto hit for his home run in the first inning was a good pitch. Low and outside and he just clubbed it to dead center. There's nothing you can do about that, nothing at all other than throw him a ball and even then he still might have hit it. He's one of the best hitters in the game and when he's one, he's 10 times worse to face.

 

It turned out to be a forgettable outing for Tomlin. He gave up six runs off 10 hits, which leads you to believe he got absolutely shelled seeing as they did it in four innings (three if you don't count the scoreless second). Hey, you know what. He did it and now his ERA is ballooning even higher. But I still have a lot of faith in Tomlin even though he's turned in two five or more run games this month after not having done that since the one ugly relief game against the Royals in April. 

 

If anything, the ballpark he pitched in was not really one that suited his style either. He lets them get a ball up and he's pretty much done for. You throw in the fact that the entire lineup was completely locked in and you can forget it. Votto is hot, Phillips is always hot against the Indians, Ludwick and Frazier ended up swinging the bats. It just wasn't going to work for Tomlin on Thursday afternoon.

If you want a positive, it was great to see the return of Shin-Soo Choo's power stroke, leading off the game with a solo home run and added another one for good measure in the fifth inning off Mike Leake again. It was only the fourth and fifth homers of the year for Choo, so he's got some catching up to do to catch Kipnis, but I'd be a little cautious in my optimism. 

 

Again, we're talking about a ballpark that is notorious for being a hitters park where home runs tend to fly out a little more often than anywhere else. Make no mistake about it all though, Choo could care less about the home runs unless it helped the team win the ballgame, which it could have, but it was simply not enough for what happened as the game progressed.

Even if the power stroke is temporary, Choo is just doing his job regardless. He does not need to hit home runs, just continue to produce. If it wasn't for two games against St. Louis in which he was completely shutdown, your eyes would pop at his June numbers. Those two games were the only ones without a hit. It was only the second and third RBIs for him in June, but he's scored 13 runs off 17 hits. That's all in 12 games, so the production for him is way up. The home runs though? Those are nice little bonuses.

You can't be too disappointed how the road trip shook out overall given the circumstances of who you faced and when you faced them. You can only home that when the lights are on at Progressive Field tonight for a showdown against state-neighbor Pittsburgh, the habits of this past series die hard and the team gets back on track.

 

One thing is for sure, the Pirates are dead last in runs scored, so the chances of them suddenly "getting into a groove" like the Reds seemed to do are few and far between. They'll probably crack the 200 run mark (last team to do so), probably, but if they crack 210, there's a problem.

So to summarize. Latos buzzes Lowe, Lowe points to Dusty, Dusty wags his finger, Reporters ask Lowe why, Lowe says to ask Dusty, Dusty says to ask Lowe, Lowe says he knows why and to ask Dusty why he ordered Latos to hit him, Dusty says he didn't order a hit but he ordered a buzz, Latos says he would have hit him if he wanted to, Lowe says something else, Manny Acta says he wants nothing to do with any of it.

 

And he's smart for it.

 

Lowe says, even though Dusty instructed the reporters to ask Lowe about it, he will not talk about it. Latos expands on the issue saying that Joey Votto was hit back in 2009. 

 

All I know is that Derek Lowe is pitching again next week when the two teams are back at it in Cleveland. 

 

Quite frankly though... This is all childish. As you can see from the mockery I've made it out to be, its nothing but he did this, go ask him why. I know why, but I'm not going to tell you, he has to tell you. It's the equivalent of two brothers fighting over a fight. 

 

And really, if this is over hitting Joey Votto, what's so secretive that you can't discuss it because, um, duh, you just did!? I'm beyond trying to figure this one out, just wake me when it's resolved or the Reds leave town. We're talking about two grown men (one way older than other too, which makes him look even more bad) having a a fight you usually see sixth graders have.

[RANDOM RUNDOWN]

How about Indians hitters hitting .333 (5-for-15) so far in interleague play? They'll have three more games in Houston so more pitchers hitting but I'd say that's pretty impressive for an AL squad. No CC Sabathia moon shots but Josh Tomlin hasn't missed a beat from his days at Texas Tech. he has two of the five hits.

You know who has one of those hits too? Reliever Esmil Rogers, who granted, has been playing National League ball for awhile just coming over from Colorado. Rogers however had two at-bats in 23 games with the Rockies and was 0-for-2 with a strikeout.

At this point, Rogers is pitching better than Tony Sipp and hitting better than Matt LaPorta, the man he ended up replacing on the active roster. I thought it would be Sipp, but the Indians must believe they must fix him in Cleveland and not Columbus. LaPorta meanwhile gets the heave-ho and it could be more permanent. The move to carry the extra arm in the bullpen is likely temporary though and it will probably be Scott Barnes that gets called back down to Triple-A at this point. 

Rogers has already gained some quick brownie points with Acta and the staff.

"That's a live arm," Indians manager Manny Acta said. "I've seen him in the past throw even harder than that before. The whole game knows he has a live arm. It's about him being consistent and taking advantage of opportunities and running away with it." 

Rogers has been impressive in his two outings with the Tribe though, so that's encouraging to see him come right in and do well. He struck out four in the 2.2 innings he's pitched. Rogers says he is excited to be with the Indians and Ubaldo Jimenez even chimed in and said he's going to love getting out of Colorado. I'm not kidding.

I'm not kidding though, Josh Tomlin has just as many hits as Matt LaPorta. I wish I was making that up.

Jack Hannahan was 0-3 on Tuesday in his rehab start for the Captains and on Thursday he was 1-for-5 and played the entire nine innings at third base. He knocked in a run and struck out three times. If he can do it again tonight, play nine innings, the Indians will decide what to do next. Likely meaning they'll activate him.

Finally, congratulations to trainer Lonnie Soloff for being named to the American League All-Star team. Hey, even trainers are All-Stars too. You know, even through Wedge and Shapiro's reign, and now Acta and Antonetti, Lonnie has been around. Nine years he's been in that dugout as the head trainer.

[TIGER WATCH]

Eh the Tigers won, Verlander pitched well, Spazverde probably danced, no one really cares about any of that. All I care about is seeing Jeff Garlin tell the Tigers fans that they suck. That was pretty awesome.

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